Reminds me of a story a friend of mine told me about a train line that ran past the local Fire Brigade many decades back. Apparently the Fireies would sometimes get a bit wound up about the train drivers waking them up on shift with their mandatory horn soundings. One day one of them lost it and went off at a driver.

Afterwards all of the drivers were very conscientious about ensuring that their horn sounds were loud, clear and consistent in length.

Opened up this week's edition of the local independent newspaper, i.e., not a News Corporation publication, the Fremantle Herald and surprise surprise Mr Granger's letter has been published in the paper as well. I wonder how many papers Mr Granger sends the same letter to. If you by chance spot a copy elsewhere please let me know; two can play this game

Well this weeks edition of the Fremantle Gazette [a News Corporation masthead] is out and my response to Mr Granger was not published, instead the only letter published by Ms Denise S Cahill, Editor is one by, you guessed it Mr Frank Granger of Applecross. At least it was not cyclists coping a spray this week, instead Mr Granger was in a positive mood over stadium sponsorship.

It is very disappointing that Ms Cahill has not bothered to address her understanding of the Western Australia Road Traffic Code before she felt it necessary to comment. I hope Ms Cahill takes appropriate steps to get informed before driving a motor vehicle again.

I am referring here on her comment “to give way to the right out roundabouts.” To my knowledge there is no such rule in the Road Traffic Code 2000 [latest version is dated November 1, 2017] [1]. The relevant part of the subsidiary legislation is Part 9 Roundabouts. I suggest a read of same . That said I draw your attention in particular to regulation 95. Right of way in a roundabout which is the actual regulation you should be familiar with. It states, “A driver entering a roundabout shall give way to a vehicle that is within the roundabout.”, not to your right, but to vehicle[s] in the roundabout. A significant and important distinction.

That all said as person who chooses to ride a bicycle [and oh drive a motor vehicle] the most dangerous intersection type I encounter in my riding is a roundabout. In particular the MGIF [Must Get In Front] as I approach the roundabout attitude prevalent in our driving community and secondly the failure to actually act in accordance with regulation 95. It got so bad with one particular roundabout on my daily commute where the risk of injury or worse was so extreme that I ended up fitting cameras to my bike and reporting the worse of the offending drivers. Thankfully this was one area of driver behaviour the WA Police actually acted on and fined the drivers.

Regretfully it does not change the behaviour of other drivers and no I didn’t have a realistic alternative route option, not that should matter. It is NOT HARD to drive your motor vehicle responsibly and safely and with due care to others.

So Ms Cahill, no I don’t need to change my behaviour as I don’t endanger motor vehicle operators, they endanger me. Your comment on people riding bicycles putting motorists at risk is simply not supported by facts.

As to your other comments about cyclists behaviour. Lets focus on just one point: In the past 12 months according to BITRE [September 2017] [2] data 31 cyclists, 160 pedestrians and 1,046 motor vehicle occupants [including 226 motorcyclists] where killed on Australian roads. To my knowledge not one pedestrian, driver, passenger or motorcyclist was killed in that period by a person riding a bicycle, yet the research and past commentary by senior police officers indicates that approximately 80% of incidents involving people riding bicycles where the fault of motorists.

Sadly in the last few days we have been reminded of this with the hit and run of 13 year old girl riding a bicycle.

So no Ms Cahill, my behaviour as a cyclist does not have to change to justify the introduction of safe passing laws. I suggest instead you reflect very carefully on where the significant problem lies; who is doing the killing of those 1,046 people? Who is destroying families? Finally and most importantly your own values.

My choice, anyone’s choice of transport should have no bearing whatsoever on your attitude towards them. They are people Ms Cahill, mums, dads, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. They have as much right to get home to the families safe and sound as you do.

I hope you reflect carefully on this going forward and I hope in future that the Community Newspaper Group ensures “Our Opinions” are factually based.

I am writing in reply to Mr Frank Granger, “Cycle Curfew”, Fremantle Gazette, November 14, 2017. The writer’s claim that most accidents [actually crashes not accidents] usually happen early morning or late afternoon caught my attention so I did a fact check. Referring to the Australian Roads Death Database, 252 cyclist fatalities are listed for the period 2011-2017. Assuming for the simplicity sake the hours of daylight are between 7:00 AM and 6:00 PM, I note that 70 deaths occurred during the hours of darkness and 182 during daylight hours. Whoops, it seems that most crashes actually occur during the day.

Of greater concern however is that during that same period there were 8,412 deaths on our roads of which 253 where cyclists. It seems to me Mr Granger needs to rethink his priorities and to reflect on where the real issue lies.

We can of course then go into the data analysis [well published] showing where the highest risk is to bicycle riders and that is I am afraid the motorist [~80% of bicycle rider fatalities are the fault of motorists].

So, no Mr Granger your curfew is not a solution. I suggest rather that you might want to start with respecting all road users, irrespective of their choice of transport. After all it comes down to common sense, care and courtesy.

Andrew ...Bicycle Rider and Motor Vehicle Operator

Last edited by Aushiker on Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

C'mon Aushiker, you know better than that. Correcting ignorant fools with facts usually only makes them more angry. On the bright side, the Fremantle Herald probably won't be able to read Frank's next letter as it will be soggy and the words smudged from all the froth coming out his mouth as he writes it.

trailgumby wrote:I've been a "serial responder" and it's quite easy to get published if you are mildly sarcastic and/or witty in the way you make your point. There is an art to it, but it's not that hard to do.

I recently posted a short rant that was not only completely void of sarcasm or wit, but actually included !(AT)#$% on my local rag's Facebook page. Much to my embarrassment it was reprinted in the paper itself the following week, with full attribution to me.

Thanks for the heads-up and well done to Shannon for making the Opinion page. A check of the full paper shows my letter from a couple of weeks ago made the paper this week so two responses to Mr Granger now published.

Actually something did occur to me just now. Using Frank's logic, someone should analyse the accident data for motorists, determine the most 'dangerous' part of the day, and impose a curfew around those hours! Surely, given that significantly more motorists are killed than cyclists, this would be more effective - and hence more urgent - in reducing the road toll?

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